Insomnia Causes

What are the Main Causes of Insomnia?

Insomnia is a common sleep disorder in which there is a difficulty in initiating or maintaining sleep. It is poor-quality sleep or habitual sleeplessness, repeated night after night. Insomnia can cause problems such as excessive sleepiness, fatigue, feeling depressed or irritable during the day. The common insomnia causes include:

• Caffeine, alcohol, recreational drugs and smoking: Consuming excessive amounts of caffeine, alcohol, recreational drugs, smoking can cause restlessness and smoking cessation is one of the cause of insomnia. Drinking caffeinated beverages or eating chocolate in the afternoon or evening can delay sleep and wake you up from sleeping. Alcohol may help you fall asleep, but it disrupts the second half of your night's sleep. Alcohol in any amount negatively affects sleep quality and duration.
• Stimulants: Prescribed medicines, including some antidepressants, high blood pressure and corticosteroid medications, can interfere with sleep. Many medications, including some pain medication combinations, decongestants and weight-loss products, contain caffeine and other stimulants, which is a cause of insomnia.
• Stress:Too many concerns about school, work, health or family keep your mind too active, making you unable to relax. Long illness also can create stress and keep you awake.
• Anxiety: Severe anxiety disorders or everyday anxieties may keep your mind too alert to fall asleep.
• Depression: If you are depressed you may either sleep too much or have trouble sleeping. This may be due to chemical imbalances in your brain or because worries that accompany depression may keep you from relaxing enough to fall asleep when you want to.
• Long-term use of sleep medications: Consumption of sleeping pills often becomes less effective over time. If a person suddenly stops taking or becomes tolerant of a long-term prescription medication, insomnia may result. If you need sleep medications for longer than several weeks, take them no more than two to four times a week, so they don't become habit-forming.
• Medical conditions that cause pain: Medical conditions that cause pain often cause insomnia as well. These include arthritis, acid reflux, heart disease, fibromyalgia or other chronic pain syndromes along with countless other conditions often cause sleeplessness. Making sure that your medical conditions are well treated may help with your insomnia.
• Behavioral insomnia. This may occur when you worry excessively about not being able to sleep well and try too hard to fall asleep. Most people having behavioral insomnia sleep better when they're away from their usual sleep environment or when they don't try to sleep, such as when they're watching TV or reading books.
• Eating too much too late in the evening: Having light food before bedtime is ok, but eating too much of food may cause you to feel physically uncomfortable while lying down, making it difficult to get to sleep. Eating heavy, spicy, or high-sugar foods at night may cause indigestion. Many people also experience heartburn, a backflow of acid and food from the stomach to the esophagus after eating. This uncomfortable feeling may keep you awake.
• Menopause:Menopause is also a cause of insomnia in women. It is found that about 30-40% of menopausal women experience insomnia; this may be due to hot flashes, night sweats, anxiety, or fluctuations in hormones.
• Menstration(Menstruation): Hormonal changes during the menstrual cycle can cause insomnia; sleep tends to improve mid-cycle with ovulation.
• Growing older: Sleep often becomes less restful as you age, but a lack of restful sleep isn't a normal consequence of aging. Changes associated with aging include changes in sleep patterns; becoming less physically and socially active; hormonal changes, and health problems which cause more chronic pain and leads to insomnia.
• Naps: Excessive napping in the afternoon or evening is one of the insomnia causes. More than two naps late in the day will interfere with sleep.
• Exercising within three hours of bedtime: Exercise stimulates the body by raising the heart rate and metabolism. Exercise late in the day interferes with sleep, but exercise earlier in the day helps you sleep well at night.
• Excessive liquids: Excessive consumption of liquids increases the need to get up and urinate during the night thus disturbing sleep.
• Environmental factors: Environmental factors like Noise, light and temperature also contribute to insomnia. Too much noise in the environment can prevent you from sleeping well or cause frequent awakening. Light affects your brain's production of the hormones that regulate sleep rhythms. Too much light in the bedroom can keep your body from deep sleep. You will be restless if you are too hot or cold; a comfortable room temperature is best.
• Change in your work schedule or environment: Travel or working a late or early shift can disrupt your body's circadian rhythms, making you unable to get to sleep when you want to. Your circadian rhythms act as internal clocks, guiding such things as your wake-sleep cycle, metabolism and body temperature.

Other causes of insomnia include sleep apnea, restless legs syndrome, circadian rhythm disorder, arthritis, kidney disease, heart failure, asthma, narcolepsy, restless legs syndrome, Parkinson's disease and hyperthyroidism.